Fantasy RV Caravan

Sunday, 25 August - Day 24

After three weeks of summer-ish weather, temperatures have turned Fall-like, at least from a Canton, GA perspective. We woke up to a sunny 49 degrees.

We could hear the heaters running in most of the RVs around us. We elected to snuggle down in our down sleeping bags instead. Sure makes for some good sleeping. A check of the weather at Deep Creek Lake in Maryland is they are experiencing similar temperatures today.

Cavendish is a tourist town known for its white sand beaches and the Anne of Green Gables home in the Prince Edward Island National Park. Along the road were signs indicating this was a Prince Edward Island Resort Municipality.

Our guide said that they get one million visitors a year. Our guide also told us that rental cottages rent for $2,000 a week and require reservations 18-24 months in advance. My assessment in yesterday’s blog comparing what we saw as we arrived to Myrtle Beach may have been an exaggeration. In Cavendish, there are a number of amusement places typical of places like Gatlinburg or Myrtle Beach, just nowhere near the scale.

All it took was 1/2 mile down Highway 13 away from Prince Edward Island National Park and you were in farm country.

This morning we gathered at 7:45am for a guided bus tour of the North Shore. After loading the bus, we went to Oceanview Lookout, or Red Cliffs, at Prince Edward Island National Park, all of 2.4km away.

The placard said we were standing on land that was once part of a mountain range known today as the Appalachian Mountains. The eroding sandstone is the source of the sand on the island and beaches.

Because our next stop was not open until 9am, our guide took us to Cavendish Beach East, also in Prince Edward Island National Park. Here, the beaches a light beige color instead of red like most of the beaches on Prince Edward Island.

We had an opportunity to walk down on the beach, and most of us did.

And were rewarded with the remains of a very elaborate sand castle sculpture.

Our next stop was the Green Gables Heritage Place. Green Gables has become famous around the world as the inspiration for the setting in Lucy Maud Montgomery‘s classic tale of fiction, Anne of Green Gables. In real life, this farm was the home of David Jr. and his sister Margaret, cousins of Montgomery‘s grandfather. Although Montgomery never lived at Green Gables, she came to know her cousin’s farm through explorations of the surrounding woodlands. The special places she discovered and named such as Haunted Wood and Lovers Lane still exist at Green Gables.

The house has been arranged as described in the book, using period pieces as much as possible.

We did walk the first 100 meters of so of Lovers Lane, as time did not permit being able to walk the entire trail.

We also did the first 100 meters of the Haunted Wood Trail, again due to time limitations.

Our next stop was the Prince Edward Island Preserve Company where the bus was met by the owner, Bruce Alexander MacNaughton. The web site provides the story of the company: https://preservecompany.com/pages/about-us, but Bruce’s version is much more entertaining. Quite a character, his personal welcome to the Prince Edward Island Preserve Company was a highlight.

His wife Shirely is a cancer survivor, and a large section of the property is now the Gardens of Hope. A beautiful garden on the River Clyde.

Part of the gardens is a house called the Respite Cottage where people and families dealing with serious illnesses can stay for free. The garden and the house are supported with donations.

The group enjoyed a delicious lunch at the Café on the Clyde.

Leaving the Prince Edward Island Preserve Company, we passed through more farmland.

As we drove through more farmland, our guide shared some facts about Prince Edward Island

The first European to visit Prince Edward Island was in 1534. Prince Edward Island was first settled by the French n the 1600s. In 1763, the British took control. Charlottetown is the Philadelphia of Canada. It is where the meeting was held to form Canada. Unlike the U.S. who went to war for independence, Canada had a conference.

The highest elevation on Prince Edward Island is 500 feet (which is just above the highest elevation in the state of Florida). The economy is primarily based on agriculture, with potatoes being the largest crop. Prince Edward Island is the third largest producer of potatoes in North America, behind Idaho & Washington. They produce 9 tons of potatoes per man, women, and child on PEI. A company on Prince Edward Island has the french fry franchise for Burger King and McDonald’s.

Prince Edward Island is also single-use plastic bag free and is considered the greenest province in Canada - even to point of peeling labels off soup cans to recycle with paper, and recycling the can separately. Through recycling and other initiatives, Prince Edward Island went from 53 landfills to just one.

Prince Edward Island is also the Kentucky of Canada, raising thoroughbred horses.

Our next stop was the Dunes Studio. We walked a small but beatiful gardens, and admired the quite pricey gift shop showcasing local artists.

On the way back to the campground, we stopped in North Rustico at the wharf by the restaurant where we ate last night for our guide to tell us how lobster fishing is done. The lobster season is only a few weeks long, and lobster fisherman are limited to a maximum of 300 lobster traps.

After we got back to the campground, Darrell walked the 1/2 mile to the Green Gables post office to mail a card. Across the street was the PEI Dirt Shirt store, and they had a sign about factory tours. While the factory tours door was closed, the back of the shirt shop was open to where they wash the red dirt into the white shirts for the dirt shirts that they sell with the iconic Prince Edward Island red in them. The red dirt on Prince Edward Island will stain white clothes, so someone figured out a way to make a business of it.